


Tick Tock

by Ecanus



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 04:15:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/474395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecanus/pseuds/Ecanus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Slick escapes the vault, Droog plays with fire, and a thousand green clocks count down to their inevitable demise (Post-Intermission, Pre-Doc Scratch Narration).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tick Tock

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for viewing/considering reading this! I'd like to start this off by saying that this is my very first Homestuck fanfiction from about half a year ago, although still my only multichapter story for this fandom. I'd like to think I've improved since then--at least in characterization--but I hope you enjoy this anyway! Also apologies for any timeline power inconsistencies, they're a little confusing. ConCrit is always wonderful.

Droog stumbles around the store in a daze, eyes flitting about the selections without any clue as to what he’s supposed to be buying. What the hell do they usually buy? Fuck if he knows at this point. His mind is still reeling from that punch from Cans. Now what’s going on?

Did everyone survive?

He stops for a moment, taking in a breath and rubbing his temples. Maybe if he waits he’ll begin to remember what happened during this week.

Sure enough, memories of things he doesn’t remember doing flood his mind. He’s here for grocery shopping, but also for… some sort of medicine? Surely not for Slick’s eye. Stitch fixed that up for Slick before he killed him. So why would he—

His arm.

Only bits and pieces are returning to him, but that fact is clear. Snowman took out Slick’s arm.

Before he has time to recover from his momentary panic about the issue, the world around him distorts. He feels like he’s spinning, spiraling into the end of the universe, eyes unseeing, ears filled with the sounds of oblivion, skin prickling as though thunder is running through his veins, insects crawling along his arms.

Tick. Tock.

And just like that he’s back in the vault room. He almost vomits from the vertigo.

Droog takes in his surroundings. Boxcars is right next to him, on the ground, babbling something about horses. Deuce… is holding a crowbar around Clover’s throat, a very dead Cans just behind him, who has a very crowbar-shaped wound in his cranium along with the gorey body parts that seem to have come from multiple explosions. So maybe Deuce’s head isn’t full of empty.

Slick isn’t there.

“Hey! You guys!” the smallest crew member exclaims, waving at them as though they haven’t seen him yet. “I beat ‘im, see? I beat ‘im!”

Droog’s still glancing about the room looking for Slick while he replies, “and how did you go about doing that, exactly?”

“Simple! I am the demolitions expert.”

Boxcars finally picks himself up off the floor. “And the boss let you use the crowbar?”

Deuce shakes his head, yanking on the crowbar as Clover tries to slip out of it. The Felt lets out a choked yelp. “Nah, this one’s from our timeline.”

Droog deadpans.

“So you’ve had it this entire time and you didn’t tell anyone?”

Deuce shrinks. “I thought I lost it. Sorry, Droog.”

He sighs. No point in arguing. He put it to good use at least—smashing Cans with the thing and managing to bring Boxcars and Droog back to the present. They have a bigger issue now. Slick is missing.

“So I’m assuming the boss still has the other crowbar.”

Deuce’s eyebrows knit with worry. “Yeah, but I don’t know what happened to him.”

“… What do you mean?”

“He disappeared.”

“… What?”

“When I got back here after putting Biscuits away, he was gone!”

“Shit.”

Clover starts to chuckle, bringing everyone’s attention to him. Droog narrows his eyes into slits. “What did you do?”

“Nothing! He did it to himelf.” His insane little laugh echoes about the room, muffling the distant eerie ticking of the mansion’s thousand clocks. “To himself! What a fool, what an ignorant selfish fool— agh!”

Droog had yanked the crowbar from Deuce’s hands before Clover could finish. “Don’t lie to me. Slick wouldn’t do that.” Rage tinges his voice despite himself. Slick wouldn’t dare do such a thing. Not the Slick he knew. Not him. Right…?

He laughs harder. “You naive little bitch, so loyal to your boss, so trusting. Yet you know shit-all about his intentions. He pried the safe open with that crowbar. One thousand years of bad luck is nothing to him. All he cares about is getting in that safe. Maybe he didn’t here, but he sure did in another timeline. That’s all that matters, right? Because in the end he’s going to destroy the fucking universe anyway!”

Clover’s cackling is cut short by a hand around his throat. Droog lifts him off the ground, making sure to keep the crowbar in place as he does.

“Fine. I’ll believe you.” Droog hisses reluctantly as he waltzes over to the vault, Deuce and Boxcars yelling, realizing what he’s about to do. “I don’t like it, but I’ll believe you. And if you’re wrong, well…”

The crowbar moves so swiftly that Clover doesn’t even notice it leave his neck. Droog places the tip of the tool beneath the vault’s door.

“You’re going down with me.”

He pulls at the safe with all his might. Clover screams in protest as cracks of green lightning and time resonate around them. It’s too late. Oblivion swallows the both of them whole.

Tick. Tock.

—————

“You idiot! You fucking piece of shit! Do you know what you fucking did!? Fuck you, fuck you and your crew of douchebags. I hate you!”

Droog hardly listens to Clover’s profanities as he observes his surroundings. The Felt mansion is in shambles. Smoke and dust rise from the fallen structure. Fire still burns in the distance of this broken world.

The vault door is open.

He drags Clover inside with him, the crowbar once again around the flustered Felt’s neck. Within its walls lies another entrance, in the floor down a ladder. The hatch is open. Droog peers down the hole and listens. Silence, save for the whirring of some sort of computer.

“Sir?” he calls out.

… Nothing.

Clover’s chuckling grates on Droog’s ears. “He’s dead. I bet he’s dead!”

The taller yanks on the crowbar. “Shut up, weasel.”

“Oh, weasel? That’s a new one, stick.”

Droog sighs and lifts Clover off the floor with the crowbar alone, suspending his small form over the hole in the ground. “I’m pretty sure those thousand years of bad luck have… handicapped your little advantage. So I’d suggest you stop being a smartass before I drop you, in turn breaking your puny green legs. Understood?”

Clover says nothing. Good enough for him.

Droog descends down the ladder, the Felt still in tow, who’s somewhat choking as he attempts to keep up. “Slick?” he calls again, but still there is no answer.

It’s only when he touches ground that he finds out why.

A few feet away, slumped over at some sort of monitoring system, is Spades Slick. His head lies on the keyboard, an infinite line of “sssssss” running across the small screen that displays what the user has typed. His left hand rests on the desk. His right…

His right isn’t there.

There’s enough blood to indicate that he’s been here for a few hours. Maybe even a few days. It seeps into the keyboard, onto the desk, dripping off its surface steadily into a sizable puddle on the floor.

Drip. Drop.

“Fuck!” Droog dashes the few steps over to his boss, hardly aware of how hard he’s yanking Clover. He places a hand on his shoulder, lifting him steadily off of the computer’s controls. Slick’s head lolles back with the momentum of the movement. No response. “Spades, come on,” Droog urges, shaking him, even slapping him a couple times. “Wake up. Wake up! You can’t do this to the crew. Not to us.

“Not to me.”

Slick sputters as he wakes, a drop of blood escaping from his mouth. His eyes open into slits, and for a moment he looks at Droog like he has fifteen heads.

“Your suit is a fucking mess. Casual Friday, fancypants?”

Droog would smile if not for the fact that Slick’s, well, bleeding to death. He shakes his head and reaches into his deck of cards. He’d let go of the crowbar without knowing, but rather than running off, Clover sat in a corner of the room. He doesn’t have anywhere to go, anyway.

“How did you get here?”

“Long story,” Droog says simply as he pulls out one of his tailored suits. He looks at it almost apologetically for a moment before biting into the sleeve at the shoulder and ripping it off with his teeth. “Doesn’t matter.”

Slick tries to make another smart remark about Droog’s suits, but all that comes out is a wheeze. He doesn’t have a lot of energy, and he’s probably dizzy as all hell from the lack of blood. Droog hastily ties the suit’s sleeve around the stump that was once Slick’s arm. Hopefully that will stop the flow, at least a little. Blood covers the entire underside of his shoes, but he doesn’t give a shit. Not now.

“Get up, Spades,” Droog says, but there’s no answer. Slick’s head is lolling forward. “Hey. Hey! Stay awake. Come on.” He slaps him gently a couple times, which is enough to get Slick’s eyes open, at least. Still, it’s painful seeing the crew’s leader this way—weak, broken.

Droog lifts the shorter crew member from the seat, slinging his arm—his only arm—across his shoulders. He turns to Clover.

“Send us back.”

Clover flits his gaze to them, glaring as he holds the crowbar in his hands. “Help you? After what you did to me and the rest of the Felt? No!”

“You little fucking prick.” Slick manages to slur out. Droog bumps him slightly, eliciting a strangled groan.

“Then, do you plan on just staying here? With us?”

“Of course not. I’ll just send myself back and leave you to sulk over your precious leader’s body as he slowly rots away.”

“Boxcars and Deuce are waiting for you,” Droog points out. “You send yourself back, without us, they’ll slaughter you. The only way you’re getting out of this is if we go with you.”

Clover’s eyes dart between Droog and the crowbar, squirming with hesitance. Slick keeps falling limp in Droog’s grasp, so the taller crouches down, allowing his boss to sit and use Droog’s arm as back support.

“Fine!” the Felt huffs reluctantly, standing up, “but the next time we meet, don’t expect me to be so helpful.”

He exits the vault, supposedly to recite and complete the riddle in order to return to the present. Droog returns his attention to Slick, who’s clearly struggling to stay awake. He’s wheezing, one eye slightly more open than the other, beads of sweat evident on his forehead.

“You better not be mad later… about the blood on your suit,” he breathes.

Droog scoffs in the most joking manner he can manage at the moment. “You know I will be.”

“Fine. I’ll just have to show you… show you my stabs then.”

“Okay.”

“That’ll be… more blood on your suit. Haha.”

“Yes.”

“Sucks for you, Droogy.” He attempts some sort of playful grin, but it comes off as a grimace. He coughs and sputters out more blood. “Fuck, this hurts.”

Droog, almost unconsciously, wipes the blood away with his thumb. “You’ll be fine soon, sir. You’ll be fine.

“You’ll be fine…”

Tick. Tock.


	2. Like Always

They return to the present in a flash, Droog’s vision blank and white as the whiplash makes him nearly pass out. Clover stands behind him, cowering, the crowbar still held in his grubby little fingers. They’re outside of the vault, barely a few feet from where Droog had pried the safe door open.

Slick is limp in his arms.

“Boss!” Boxcars’s booming voice interrupts the few moments of silence, both he and Deuce rushing over when they notice the blood and, more importantly, Slick’s missing limb. “What the hell happened? You two were gone for barely a few seconds.”

“More like ten minutes for us. Found him like this at some sort of… command station in the vault.”

“Sorta like the one’s we found before? With those horned kids?”

“Yes. Deuce,” Droog turns his gaze to the shortest crew member, who’s attempting to wrangle up Clover again, “leave him alone.”

“But—”

“Just leave him be. I’ll explain later.” Droog turns his attention back to Slick, just now noticing that he’s gone still. His mouth is sort of slack, eyes half-lidded and looking off at nothing in particular. “Hey. Hey!”

“Calm the fuck down,” Slick wheezes out, lifting his left arm and touching Droog’s torso in some sort of attempt at slapping him. “I’m awake.”

He sets his mouth into a thin line and nods stiffly. “Okay.” He turns to Boxcars. “Can you carry him?”

“Fuck no, I am not going to be his goddamn damzel in distress.” Slick groans as he sits up, Droog obliging with a little push on his back. “I’ll walk.”

Droog’s brow creases. “But sir—”

“I’ll. Walk.” He gives him a commanding look with his good eye. This is an order. He’s being stubborn about it, refusing to look like some weakling that can’t walk on his own two feet around the crew, blood or no blood. Or maybe it’s a plea. _Don’t let them see me like you saw me back in the vault. Please. I’m stronger than that_.

Droog sighs. “Fine. But I’m helping.”

“Fine.”

Slick, very slowly, rises to his feet, Droog’s hand beneath his arm as he struggles to stay upright. Both Deuce and Boxcars hover around them, completely oblivious to Clover as he chuckles and finally slips out of the room.

Their leader wobbles as he takes a step, sort of like a child learning how to walk. Whatever tough guy act he was trying to pull is lost with that one action. He realizes it too, slumping over and forcing Droog to carry all of his weight. _I give up. I give up._

“Okay, come on,” Droog grunts as he slings Slick’s arm over his shoulders again.

“You gonna be okay, boss?” Deuce’s little voice squeeks with worry. He’s staring at the sleeve crudely wrapped around his stump of an arm, already soaked in blood.

“Yeah, yeah, just get me out of here.”

—————

They put him in the hospital under a fake name. Not for any set amount of time. In fact, he can leave whenever he wants. They would avoid it altogether if that was possible, but it isn’t. Slick needs blood, and unfortunately they don’t have any lying around.

The Crew visits him now and then, seperately. Deuce brings him little hand-drawn get well cards, which Slick promptly rips apart with his teeth. Deuce is okay with it. He thinks that’s his boss’s way of saying he likes it. Boxcars doesn’t bring anything, but takes on the full brunt of Spades’s yelling and grumbling and complaining.

Droog? The two times he visits, Slick is asleep, oddly enough. The first time he stays for a few hours. The second he gives up after one. There’s only so much patience he has to sit there, watching over his leader with nothing to do except listen to the monotonous beep of the heart monitor. So he places the backup hat full of Scotty Dogs that he brought for Slick on his side table and leaves.

Deuce brings both back empty.

—————

It’s the middle of the fourth night when Droog wakes to the sound of music drifting from outside his room. At first he thinks he’s dreaming. It isn’t unusual for him to dream of music. But it’s crude, like a children’s song. It grates on his ears. He grumbles and stands, throwing on a white collared shirt. He attempts to button it up but puts the top button in the wrong hole, making the shirt lopsided. He doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. He’s too distracted by the simple music echoing through their hideout.

The mobster tiptoes out of his room, thinking maybe the record player’s hand had slipped. But as he peaks into the hideout’s main room, he knows that he’s wrong.

Slick’s door is open.

Intrigued, Droog approaches his leader’s room, pushing the door ever so slightly to look inside.

And there’s Slick, sitting at his piano in the dark, slouched over as his left hand drifts across the low octave keys of the ebony instrument. When he brings his hand down it’s only his index finger that plays a note. And slowly he does this, until eventually Droog recognizes the basic tune of a lullaby.

A lullaby that was once accompanied by chords and harmonies played like a masterpiece with Slick’s surprisingly artistic fingertips, reduced to the simplest form. Weak. Empty.

Droog hates it. He’s adjusted to Slick being angry and frustrated, and even on the rare occasion, silly. But not this. Not sad. Not lost. It’s so very _not_ Slick and he hates it.

Slick’s finger slips up on the last note, making him swear under his breath and mash his fist against the ivory keys. The cacophony of noise that erupts forces a gasp out of Droog. And then he knows. Even the sway of Slick’s empty right sleeve seems to freeze with him.

The silence is deafening.

“What do you want?”

Droog exhales, not realizing he was holding his breath. Slick doesn’t even turn. He just sits. Waits. But for the life of him, Droog has no idea what to say.

“You just gonna stand there? Come on, out with it.” His voice sounds slurred and somewhat forced. Droog walks into the room, eying him. Slowly he notices that Slick is rocking back and forth a little, trying to keep himself upright. Even in the darkness, he can see that the man’s eyes are half-lidded. The meds, most likely. He must have just walked in.

“I… heard music. I didn’t think you’d be back yet, sir.” He pauses, looking at him sternly. “Why did you walk back here so late?”

And Slick laughs—an ironic, humourless laugh that stabs Droog right in the goddamn heart. “The better question is, why the fuck did I come back at all?”

“… You don’t mean that.”

“Yeah? I don’t?” The shorter’s eyes seem to ignite. He lifts what’s left of his right arm, but with the jacket covering it, it looks more like a shrug. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this, huh? Nudge the bitch to death!?”

“Slick, you—”

“Don’t _Slick_ me. I know I have another arm. But come on. Do I look at all intimidating to you? No arm, no eye? Half-broken?”

Broken. _No, Spades. You look like a man who’s been through plently more than anyone will in two lifetimes and live to kill another day. And that’s intimidating._ But he can’t say that, because Slick’s still on a tangent.

“Who’s going to be scared when they’re told the leader of the Midnight Crew is some one-armed, one-eyed midgit? Who’s going to run screaming from a guy like me?”

_They’ll underestimate you._

“Who the fuck is going to look up to a leader who can’t even play a fucking _kiddy song_ on this fucking piece of shit?” he slams his fist against the piano keys.

_Me._

But maybe not. Because with every word he’s hating this Slick more and more. This broken, whining Slick. Self-loathing. Melodramatic. This isn’t the man he knows.

“So tell me, why did I come back? Why did I bother?”

Droog slaps him.

They stay like that for what feels like minutes, all of the things Droog wants to say bottled up in that one hit. _Because it’s your job. Because you chose this. Because you’re stronger than that. Because you have a crew that would miss you, goddamnit._

Hundreds of emotions cross Slick’s face, starting with the obvious _why the fuck would he do that_ and ending with _why the fuck did I say that_. He slumps on the piano bench, bringing his hand up to rub at his temples and the place where Droog had slapped him. There’s still that frustration and pent-up anger from what he’s going through, but the self-loathing is gone.

The air is stagnant, neither knowing exactly how to break the silence.

Tick. Tock.

Droog finally fills it with a sigh. “Do you want to…” he trails off, not needing to voice the rest. Slick will understand.

“No,” he replies, standing abruptly as he says it. He tips forward, and Droog readies his arms to catch him, but he manages to steady himself. “I’m going for a walk.” He pushes passed the taller crew member.

“Spades—”

“Shut up.”

Droog watches him leave the room, not moving as he hears Slick clumsily climbing up the ladder and out onto the street. The hideout is quiet. Slick’s keyboard smashing didn’t wake the two other members, it seems. He sits on the edge of the piano bench rather than returning to his room. He takes a cigaratte out of his shirt’s pocket. Lights it up. Puts it in his mouth.

And he waits.

—————

Five cigarettes and half an hour more later, Slick still isn’t back. This wouldn’t concern Droog any other time, but right now, he himself is getting drowsy, it’s the middle of the night, and Slick is stumbling around, high on medication and likely to show the next person he sees his stabs.

Probably time to go fetch the poor bastard.

He exhales long and harsh before standing and tossing the butt of his smoke into the garbage in the corner of Slick’s room. He won’t be too happy with the smell, but it’s not like their entire hideout isn’t permeated with it anyway. He’ll get over it. Hell, if anything, he’ll be mad at Droog instead of himself.

He returns to his room momentarily to put on a proper pair of pants, then climbs up the ladder.

“Slick?” he calls out, hoping the man is close enough to hear it and return. Fat chance. Even if he could, he’d probably just turn the other way.

The streets of Midnight City are cold and quiet and menacing, in that time of night when party-goers and trouble-makers have just gone to bed and working civilians are hitting the snooze button, hoping for those ten or twenty extra minutes of sleep. Half of the street lights are off, having lost sync with the others a long time ago, the light of the ones that still shine interrupted by the occasional flicker. A car chugs down the road, disappears around a corner. Silence once more.

A shadow darts into an alleyway.

Droog watches the alley’s entrance, just yards from where he’s standing, with a furrowed brow. “Slick…?” No answer.

Wary, Droog takes out the deck of cards in his pants pocket and pulls out the ace of diamonds. He wields the cue stick with one white-knuckled hand, relaxed but still somewhat prepared in case it’s someone looking for a fight. Like Clover.

The crew member approaches the entrance, silent, steady. Even the slightest flinch of movement in the corner of his eye will set him off.

He’s not quick enough.

A hand whips out of the alley just as he’s about to turn the corner and grabs his collar, pulling him into the darkness. His cue stick clatters on the pavement, the assailant pinning him against the wall.

It’s Slick.

“Slick, where did you—” but he can’t finish, because the shorter pulls him down and slams their mouths together in a very violent kiss. And Droog, very calmly, gives in.

It’s bloody, and vicious, and there’s absolutely nothing good about it. His razor teeth tear into Droog’s mouth like it’s butter, hand letting go of his collar to shred through his shirt and into his arm. Slick’s breath is hot as he laps up the red velvet dripping through the gashes, but then he’s biting, again, and again, and again.

“Open,” he demands, and Droog complies. He pulls him down not by his collar, but by the cuts in his arm, digging his fingers deeper, clashing teeth against teeth, tongue against blood-craving tongue.

Hate-snogging.

Or rather, Slick’s way of coping. It’s not that he hates Droog, per se. This is just the way he’s resorted to letting out his frustration.

At first it was through desecrating their hideout. They disallowed that after Slick broke his own piano, which wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to replace. After that, the boss got a little too… reckless. He stuck his head out way more often, killed more than he had to. Droog, being his right-hand man, offered him a punch to the face. Slick would eventually snap on one of them anyway, and like hell he was going to let that person be Deuce. Boxcars would probably just absorb it so Slick wouldn’t even try.

So he threw a punch. It wasn’t long before that became full-on beat-up sessions, complete with visible bruises and cuts. The other two saw and knew, but didn’t question it. Until one day Slick broke Droog’s arm. That’s when they drew the line.

And now it’s… this. Yeah, Droog has little scars on his mouth, and yeah, the other two know. At least this way he doesnt have to worry about a broken bone. It still hurts, and still calms Slick down.

But it always seems to end in a… tender sort of way. Slick gradually slows, like always. His ravenous gnawing becomes gentle lovebites, then nibbling, and Droog can never tell if he needs to do this gradual thing to stay sane or if its his way of apologizing. He stops but keeps his face hovering close, eyes shut. Like always.

“Done?” Droog asks. Slick just nods. The taller member, out of habit, brings his thumb up to wipe his own blood off of his leader’s mouth, and he lets him, because somehow that’s become routine.

It’s only after that that Slick darts away, striding with purpose back to their hideout. And Droog watches him go, spitting on the pavement and wiping his mouth on another ruined shirt.

Like always.


	3. Pendulum

“Slick?”

Droog knocks on his leader’s door in hopes that today he’ll come out of his room. He didn’t yesterday. After the two of them returned to bed, Slick didn’t come out. A day has passed and none of the three crew members have seen any of their boss, and they still know next to nothing of what exactly happened in the vault.

Boxcars and Deuce have chairs pulled up to the table in the center of the room, four steaming bowls placed on its surface. They rarely have meals together, and even when they do it’s usually Boxcars who cooks. Today, Droog did. It’s a special gourmet chili. Droog already had the ingredients for it, since he planned to make it some time ago. That was, until all this Felt business went down. He’s only made it a few times before, and he knows it’s Slick’s favourite. He knows because he’s never seen the man scarf something down so quickly and demand for seconds, then thirds.

Hopefully it’ll play as a useful bargaining chip.

Droog knocks again. “Slick, you need to eat, at least.”

_Thwick._

He jumps a little at the sound, moving back to glance at the door, then over at the other two. They shrug, just as confused as him. It’s a faint sound and none of them can put their finger on it.

_Thwick._

Droog turns back to the door, a little concerned now. With a last ditch attempt he tries the handle. It turns. The door hasn’t been locked this entire time. He lets out an exasperated sigh, then warns, “I’m coming in.”

 _Thwick._ Louder.

He peaks inside. The lights are off, so he can’t see much of anything. “Slick—”

He ducks out of the way just in time to dodge a knife whizzing through the air. It embeds itself in the wall behind him.

_Thwick._

Oh.

Droog observes the area around the knives. There’s a sheet of paper with Snowman’s face pinned to the wall—how the hell Slick got it is anyone’s guess—covered in little cuts from what he assumes is the markings of other knives. Scratches also marr the surface around the sheet, concentrated there, but even in the darkness Droog can spot the odd two or three scattered about as though the knives had slipped from their owner’s grasp.

Target practice.

_Thwick._

“Agh— Slick, please, put the knives down for a minute.” Droog flips the lightswitch, resulting in a pained groan from the man reclined on his bed. He’s fully dressed, but the clothes are visibly ratty. Through Slick’s squinting, he can see red against the white of his eyes.

“Fuck, turn the light off,” he grumbles, waving his hand in an almost drunk manor.

“… Have you slept at all?”

“Yeah, plenty.” Slick rubs at his eyes as they throb with want for darkness. “It’s the drugs.”

Droog nods. Whatever he’s taking has some interesting side effects. It looks as though he’s high and having a hangover at the same time. He blinks slowly, relaxed but irritated. “Well, will you eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

The taller man’s shoulders droop at his stubbornness. _The point is that you can’t just sit in here and starve yourself_ , he wants to say, but instead he goes with something that might not piss him off nearly as much. “The point is that I made your favourite meal and it’s sitting on the table getting cold.”

Boxcars chuckles behind him. Deuce promptly delivers a small slap on the brute’s arm.

After a squinted look and whiff of the air, Slick pushes himself out of bed. “Fine, _honey_ , I’ll eat the goddamn food.”

The smallest crew member joins in the chuckling.

But all humour ends when Slick weakly pushes passed Droog, the missing arm and slouched posture doing nothing to deter his glare.

The two take their place at the table, all of them hesitantly picking up their spoons to eat. Except Slick. He’s looking at it like he’s interrogating it; like if he stares it down it’ll eventually give in and eat itself. He lifts his left arm and holds the spoon, which wobbles—he’d always been favourable with his right hand, and the meds weren’t helping. The spoon clangs as he tries to bring it into the bowl but ends up hitting the rim. Lack of depth perception isn’t going over well either.

He grumbles, tries again. This time he manages to scoop some of the chili onto it, but just as he’s bringing it out of the bowl it hits the rim again. The spoon tips, and the chili drops right back in. Slick swears.

“So, uh, boss,” Boxcars coughs out, averting everyone’s attention from their struggling leader. They were staring without realizing it. “What happened? You know, in the vault.”

“What the fuck else happened? Snowman.” Slick drops the spoon, giving up. “Took my arm and then locked me up in that safe. Which, by the way, had _shit_. Zip. Nadda. Nothing.”

“But,” Droog cuts in, “it did have that command center. Just like ours.” They’d all had their own. Found them on different heists. It was only the code on their wrists that opened the locks, so they supposed that in some way they were important. They typed in commands until the screen went dark, which they supposed meant they were finished, so they went on their way.

It’s been so long since Droog found his command center that they assumed Slick didn’t have one.

Slick scrunches his face. “You never told me how to get inside.” 

Droog shrugs. “You got in, didn’t you?” Slick grumbles, but continues.

“So it was in the Felt mansion. This whole time?” The crew leader lets that sink in for a moment. “Why would they lock my command center away, behind a giant time paradox safe door? More importantly, why would that bitch _lock me in there_ when I finally got inside? Wouldn’t she want me to stay out if it was so important?”

Slick grinds his teeth as he thinks it over. “There’s something missing because none of this makes any sense.

“She’s hiding something. I can feel it.”

The crew is silent, the topic dropped and eventually forgotten. A few minutes later they start up again, even adding a few little jabs at Slick as he concentrates on eating. Threats are thrown around as the teasing continues. It’s a very average meal in the hideout.

Droog is quiet.

—————

The rest of that day goes by slowly. Slick returns to his room and isn’t seen again. They all go about their own business. Nothing much happens until evening, when Boxcars and Deuce leave to take care of another gang moving into their territory.

Droog stays behind to make sure Slick doesn’t try to follow.

He never does.

He leaves his room but doesn’t attempt to pass Droog—who’s sitting at the table—to get to the ladder. Instead he sits across from him, pulls out a deck of cards, and plays a game of solitaire while the other solves a crossword. No words or contact is traded, except for the occasional nudge of Slick’s foot from Droog whenever the man seems to be drifting to sleep in the middle of his game.

They both wait for the others to return. Silently.

Droog can’t help but observe him now and then, though. Can’t help but notice that he’s not eager about another heist. Can’t help but notice how content he is just lazing around. It makes him wonder if his state of mind has changed at all since the other day, despite his efforts. If this is the same Slick or not.

And then Droog wonders, more and more, if he is the one with the missing piece to this puzzle.

Something happened in the Felt Mansion that he had yet to mention to anyone. He heard a voice. He couldn’t tell if it was disembodied or if he’d just been looking in the wrong direction, since it came from behind him. But he’d heard the words, clear as day as he made his way to Stitch.

_“Set off the alarm by the vault. Answers will be given.”_

He couldn’t put a face to the voice, but it couldn’t have been anyone good considering where they were. He checked anyway. There was no alarm by the vault.

But after the conversation today, he realized something.

Maybe they didn’t mean that vault. Droog’s command center had been in a locked room as well. Maybe that’s where he needs to go. Maybe this is his part to play.

More importantly, maybe this will restore Slick’s motivation.

—————

Slick sends Droog to do a grocery run for him the next morning, not only for food but for his medication. Not surprising. It’s been seven days since everything happened, and he figured Cans had punched him into a ‘next week’ that correlated with this timeline.

He goes as he’s told, but the only thing he buys is the medication for Slick. He pockets the few bottles of pills and promptly exits the store, heading in the opposite direction of their hideout. This is the safest time to investigate. They weren’t outside much during the day, let alone early morning. Less of a chance of getting caught.

Droog walks for about half an hour. He remembers the general location of the vault—a sort of office building on a street corner, occupied by a gang who’d trashed a few of the crew’s many bars, and rumored to have connections with the Felt.

It’s not hard to find. The building is run-down now from months of neglect. Once they’d driven the gang out it stayed this way—deserted, abandoned and forgotten.

The front door is slightly ajar. Droog walks in, cue stick at the ready, but the halls are hollow. Every step he takes echoes loud in every direction. No chance for stealth, but that goes not only for him but anyone who might be lurking in the shadows. He lets his guard down just enough to concentrate on his goal while still maintaining an awareness of his surroundings.

He finds his way to the stairs leading into the basement, where they found the vault door, hidden behind boxes and other storage containers. As he makes his way down, he notices a flickering light bouncing off the walls of the otherwise dark basement. A peek between the railings reveals a squatter resting by a fire made of scraps of plywood and garbage. Harmless.

However, the fire is concerning. Would the smoke set of an ala—

A fire alarm. That’s what he needs.

He glances around the nearly empty storage space. It’s not hard to spot the small red switch on the wall, adjacent to the squatter. Jackpot. There is no hesitation as he darts down the stairs and strides over to it. But he stops, just before his finger pushes down on the small lever. He looks around the room, at the yawning squatter, the dusty air, the abandonment, and wonders if maybe he’s wrong. This is ridiculous.

Only one way to find out.

He presses it down.

Nothing happens. No irritating sound, no water, no—

The squatter screams. Droog glances over, intrigued as the man stares in horror at the fire and stumbles back. He turns, notices Droog but doesn’t comment, and darts up the stairs absolutely petrified.

That’s when he sees it.

A figure slowly materializes from the flames, licking at its burly stature, hissing as it evaporates to reveal more of whatever this creature is. Droog’s eyes widen, frozen in place, not sure if he should believe what—or rather who, evidently—he’s seeing.

Free from the fire, the large man coughs and dusts off the front of his green suit. He doesn’t seem surprised in the least. “Hello, Droog. A little late in calling, I see.”

His mouth is dry as he greets the Felt.

“Matchsticks.”

—————

Three days. It’s been three days.

And Droog’s still missing.

When he didn’t come back the first night, none of them were too concerned. Especially Slick, who was more angry than anything. Droog is probably the most compitent of any of them. He wouldn’t do something stupid.

Frustration fills the hideout by the second night. They have enough food for now but Slick’s drugs are running out. Less and less doses in order to compensate. More and more irritation from his right shoulder. Whatever the fuck his right-hand man is doing, it better be important, or this time he’ll break all of his limbs.

But it’s the third night now. Deuce and Boxcars went out to search, leaving Slick behind in case Droog comes back while they’re looking. No matter what the man is doing, he should have been back by now. Three days is the limit. If any of the crew members don’t report back in that time, the assumption is that something happened. Something bad.

Slick sits at the main table in the hideout, glaring at the ladder as he spins a knife between his fingers and his thumb. He’d have gone with the others to search, but he isn’t reckless. Okay, he is, but this is different. If Droog’s in trouble, they’re not dealing with small-fry, and he’s not in any condition to fight. Not yet. His arm still hurts without the painkillers, and with them he’s a fumbling idiot. Someone has to stay behind regardless, and no way would that person be their muscle or their demolitions expert.

Logic, he reminds himself. Logic. Not self-pity. He’s gotten over that. The moment he’s ready to fight, he’ll tear everyone to shreds. Especially her.

Droog snapped him out of that shitty mindset. And the more he thinks about it, the more he grinds his teeth. He won’t admit it to anyone, but if Droog wasn’t around he’d probably be dead five times over by now. The guy is selfless. Caring. His voice of reason.

Slick grimaces as he lifts the knife and throws it across the room. The blade embeds itself in the wall.

And hell if he’s not fucking worried for the son of a bitch.

—————

It’s around two in the morning when the manhole cover shifts aside, breaking the silent tension that had risen in the night. The edge of it is dropped with a clang, the man descending the ladder and moving it back into place. He holds a briefcase.

Droog.

He expects to be beaten to a pulp the moment he enters the hideout, but instead he’s greeted by… nothing. Except for, well, the gentle breathing of a certain sleeping crew leader. Evidently, no one is here to wake him or bring him to his room.

“… Slick?” Droog mutters with hesitation as he reaches the last step of the ladder.

If it’s possible for a man to jump out of sleep, that’s exactly what he does. He stands up with a flash, eye wide and hands searching the table for some sort of weapon. Droog’s mouth twitches as he takes the knife out of the wall, holding it out. “Are you looking for this, sir?”

His words snap Slick out of his momentary adrenaline rush, hands freezing and expression stricken with shock. But slowly, ever so slowly, that look morphs into one of anger and disgust and—is Droog imagining it?—relief.

“You idiot!” Slick screams, circling the table with much more purpose than he’d shown previously. Ah. No medication. “Where the fuck were you? Where the _fuck_ do you get off wandering around without saying _shit_ and coming back without a fucking scratch, huh!?” Droog raises his arms, dropping the knife but keeping the briefcase in his grasp.

“I can explain—”

“You can’t explain anything right now, buddy. There is nothing that’ll stop me from tearing you a new goddamn—”

“I got you help.”

Slick stops a few feet away. His look is indecipherable for a moment. Droog predicts something like graditude, if only a little. But no. He grimaces as if he’s offended. “What?”

“Just—” Droog walks forward and places a reassuring palm on Slick’s arm. He shrugs it off and backs away. Mortified. The taller sighs, clenching his fist. “Please, take a seat. Let me show you. Please.”

Every fibre of Slick seems to want to cut Droog to pieces. Every last fibre. But he backs away. Whatever the reason is—curiosity, desperation, trust—he backs away. He does so until he hits the edge of the table, at which point he hops up onto it rather than sitting in a chair. His continuous glare is discouraging.

Droog is tight-lipped as he approaches and places the briefcase next to him, Slick’s gaze sinking into him like daggers with every move. “… I need to see your arm.”

He doesn’t have to say which one. Slick understands. He glances between the briefcase and his partner, more and more suspicious with every second that passes by.

“Why.”

It’s not a question. It’s a demand. Droog taps his fingers against the case’s latch, refusing to meet his leader’s gaze.

“Spades—”

“Diamonds. What. Is in the briefcase.”

He won’t cooperate until he knows. Until he sees instead of being told. There is no choice.

Droog undoes the latch and opens the lid. Inside, placed in the corner of some sort of soft surface, is a syringe with a bottle of clear liquid next to it. Next to that? A robotic arm. A very detailed, very intricate, very expensive-looking robotic arm.

Slick, for a moment, says nothing.

“You did something idiotic, didn’t you.” His voice is barely over a whisper, but the anger in it is obvious.

Droog sighs and shakes his head. He can’t know. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here and—”

“It _does_ fucking matter.” Slick’s frustration is almost palpable. His anger has calmed to a simmer, but the underlying rage is still there. “How do I know that you didn’t get this from some fuckwit trying to make a quick buck? How do I know you get this enough to actually attach it to me? How do I know that I can trust whoever gave this to you?”

“Do you trust _me_?” Droog looks at him. Looks him right in the eye with a determination he shouldn’t have. Because he worked with the enemy, learned everything about the attachment process from him. He ignored his intuition and did something he should never have done. And now he’s asking Slick to trust him. Everything is fine. There are no loose ends, no fine prints to be concerned about. He’s lying. Straight to his goddamn face.

Slick is the first to look away. He has no reply, because he trusts him. He does. He does with all of his being and Droog wants to vomit. Despite doing all of this for Slick, for _him_ , he’s still a fucking traitor.

He waits as Slick removes his blazer and unbuttons his collared shirt to peel the right side away. He refuses to look at Droog, and he can’t tell if it’s out of stubborness or shame or embarassment. Bandages still cover the end of what is the rest of his right arm. He unwraps it, slowly. Not because he hates it, but because it hurts.

Droog can’t hold back the grimace once the bandage is gone. It’s not fully healed. There’s clotted blood and healing skin tissue, puckered and thin. Slick takes one look at it and winces. “Fuck.”

“It’s fine,” the taller reassures, picking up the syringe and bottle. He inserts the end and takes out the amount he needs before stepping towards Slick. He flinches away a little as he realizes where the needle is going, but Droog gives him another reassuring glance and that seems to calm him down enough.

Strange, how few words they’re exchanging. There’s still tension, and anger, but this process keeps them quiet, at least for now.

Slick takes in a sharp breath as the needle enters his arm, just above the wound, but as soon as it happens it’s over. The meds are in, and all they can do at this point is wait. Droog pulls out a chair, crossing his arms and legs, not saying a word.

Tick. Tock.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Slick mutters. It’s been maybe a minute. His right shoulder is more relaxed than the other.

“You didn’t need to.”

Slick shoots him a look. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” The anger is returning. Droog’s jaw clenches.

“You know.”

“What? Because my first day out of the hospital, I’m a little twisted, and that makes you jump the fucking gun and go overboard with trying to… to _fix_ me? Is that what you’re trying to do?” He pauses, eyes narrow. Droog doesn’t speak. “Listen, buddy, I’m fine. You slapped that shit outta me as soon as it got in. I can live with this. But then you bring in this crap and you’re not telling me who or where it’s from and saying it’s _fine_? Fucking ridiculous.”

Droog almost laughs.

They’ve switched roles. Slick no longer cares. He’s moved on. And yet here’s Droog, trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixing. Trying to pick him up when he’s already running.

He lets another minute pass before he speaks. “How are you feeling?”

“Stabby,” is Slick’s automatic reply. His right shoulder is completely relaxed, likely numb, and that’s really all Droog needs as reassurance to continue. He stands and retrieves the first piece of the robotic arm.

Piece by piece, he attaches it to Slick. The first bit, despite the heavy painkiller, makes him clench his teeth hard enough that his gums start to bleed. Of course, the process isn’t bloodless. Droog has to tear into his tissue in order to reach the proper nerves. A few towels are ruined.

But after that, it’s all a matter of linking wire to wire, plate to plate, metal to metal. It goes like clockwork. When he attaches that last piece of thumb, he holds his breath. It’s done.

“Okay.” Droog tentatively puts down his tools and lifts Slick’s arm by the fingers. He’s calm now, having accepted it, his anger for the man’s three-day-abscence bottled away at least for the moment. “How is it?”

Slick rolls his shoulder, just regaining feeling in it, and after a rather long pause he observes his new arm. New hand. New fingers.

Droog watches as his index finger flexes. Slowly. The breath that he was holding comes out in a giant wave. It’s working.

But when he looks at Slick’s face, his heart drops into the pit of his stomach. There is no joy. He looks… confused.

“What’s wrong?”

Slick just shakes his head, moving more fingers, even turning his hand. But every movement is tedious and forced and _wrong_.

“Can’t feel it.”

Everything shatters.

Droog’s eyes widen as he stares at the arm, still holding the mechanical appendages. “No, you’re supposed to…” he trails off, grabbing his palm, the back of his hand, his wrist, squeezing and pressing and panicking. “Maybe your shoulder’s still numb.” But Slick shakes his head. He can feel his shoulder fine. It’s the arm.

_It’s the arm._

“No.” It’s supposed to work. _It’s supposed to fucking work._ He followed everything perfectly. Every little detail. And yet it’s useless anyway. He risked his life and the crew’s safety. He risked their trust. He risked it all for this _piece of shit._

“Hey. Hey, Diamonds!” Slick snaps his fingers, grabbing his attention. “Calm down, it’s not a big fucking deal.”

 _But it is a big fucking deal_ keeps running through his mind and he’s breathing fast and his eyes are wide and he’s panicked and frustrated and angry and—

“Punch me.”

Droog’s silent breakdown takes a pause.

“What?”

“I said punch me.” Slick gestures to his own face. “You’re fucking angrier than I am about this and I’m the one missing a limb. So punch me. You of all people need to stay in check.”

The roles have completely switched. It’s so goddamn surreal. Droog is never outwardly angry, and yet here he is, his usual calm demeanor destroyed by something that isn’t his issue. And there’s Slick, taking that place for him. Being the punching bag. Being the stress ball when he should be the one losing it over this.

Droog shakes his head, taking a deep breath. “No.”

Slick blanks. “I’m offering you a _punch to my face_. Think of it as payback. Come on.”

_“No.” I can’t lose it. I’m the punching bag. That’s my job._

“I said punch me.”

“I said no.” Droog meets his gaze straight-on, but he can’t hide the anger there. 

“It’s a fucking order. Now _hit_ me, you piece of shit.”

“I won’t.”

Slick slaps him. “Hit me.”

Droog clenches his teeth. “No.”

“Hit me!”

“N—”

Slick grabs his tie and pulls him in, pressing their mouths together and ending the argument.

Droog is frozen. He knows exactly what Slick wants him to do. He wants him to bite, to shred, to make him bleed. This is so absolutely unlike him. The first time they ever did this, Droog attempted to participate—simply to create a struggle and give Slick more to work with—but he pulled away and beat him to a pulp all over again. He never tried after that. But here they are now and Slick is on the receiving end, offering himself up, being the selfless one. Maybe this is his way of showing his gratitude for trying. Despite all of the yelling and the scolding, maybe there is a part of him that wants to thank him.

But Droog can’t do it.

So they stay that way for a few seconds, awkward, Slick’s hand clenched around his tie hard enough to keep him from escaping. Neither move, one waiting for pain, the other hesitant and unsure.

Slick gets impatient.

He leans in and grabs Droog’s bottom lips between his teeth, not enough to sting but enough to get a hold on it, and he pulls just a little, muttering “come on” as he does. Droog has to place a hand against the table to support himself, because christ if that’s not…

Seductive? No. That’s not it. That’s not what this is. But he’s already thinking it and before he can stop himself he pushes against his mouth. It’s just a peck, but Slick, figuring he’s encouraged him to at least start something, lets go. And he waits again. Nothing happens.

Droog’s inner voice is screaming at him, _that’s not what this is, that’s not what this is_ , but he can’t fight off the feeling of his heart jumping into his throat as Slick’s teeth nip at his mouth again. This time Droog pushes forward a little harder. And again, the shorter stops and waits.

The cycle continues, encouragement followed by progressively deeper kisses, Slick completely oblivious to the advances. But then Droog’s tongue darts out, just briefly, but enough that he sees it. And it clicks.

His encouragements become half-hearted, until eventually his original intentions are non-existant. He moves when Droog moves, he pushes when Droog pushes, and when the latter feels the former’s tongue trace the scars on his lips he throws logic to the wind.

“Slick,” he breathes, feeling the man’s hand wrap around to cup the back of his head, his hat falling off without notice as their movements become frantic. His mouth parts and wow, wow can Slick kiss without the gore and pain in the way. Droog’s free hand grabs the mechanical arm to rest it over his shoulder before he slithers his fingers up his bare back, between his shoulder blades.

The room is heady, their breathing hard with the occasional grunt or whispered cuss. Tools clatter and roll, Droog moving in closer and pushing Slick down so he’s nearly hanging off of him, and Slick complies with the slightest spread of his legs. It’s getting way out of hand but they’re just following the motions, letting it take over, the reality around them fading far into the background to make room for the heat rising and rising, Slick’s hand crawling down and fumbling with the top button of Droog’s suit—

A clang resounds from the top of the ladder.

Droog straightens himself out, head turning swiftly and watching as the cover is removed and two large feet step onto the top rung. Before he can even react, a hand is pushing him back. He turns to look at Slick, but the man is already off the table, face turned away as he darts into his room and slams the door behind him. It’s over.

“Droog?” Boxcars’s voice isn’t tinged with anger. It’s just surprise and worry as he observes the mess that is their hideout. “What happened?”

Droog’s breath is still coming out in huffs as he picks up his hat and dusts it off, straightening his tie. There’s not a whole lot he can say to summarize exactly why there are tools and bloody towels lying around. He’s flustered, words momentarily lost to him.

“I—” he begins, Deuce now making his way down, “I’m not… exactly sure. I’ll clean it up and get back to you.”

He looks at it all, nearly as confused as the other two are. But there is at least one thing he’s sure about.

He’s not angry anymore.


	4. Burn

A few weeks pass by with little acitivity, much to the Crew’s dismay. Their heists are quick and seldom happen. They wouldn’t go on any at all, in fact, but they need to eat somehow. Their usual nightly endeavors have been cut down to weekly events. Why?

Droog.

There was much protest at first. After his very vague explanation of getting the mechanical arm from a “specialist”, he insisted that they keep low for a while. He never provided reason for it, and so the other three were suspicious. But no matter how long they argued, or how hard they prodded, Droog never gave an inch.

So they agreed. Reluctantly.

Slick spends the first little while brooding over a sense of betrayal from his comrade… among other things associated with that night. But eventually he distracts himself. He trains his arm.

It’s strange. It’s like he slept on his arm all night and he’s waiting for it to wake up, but he knows it won’t. No matter how much of an urge he has to wave the limb or hit it against something to get the blood circulating, he knows there is no blood to circulate.

After getting used to that feeling, he moves on to basic movement. Holding objects without dropping them. Throwing a ball straight up and catching it. Things that aren’t dangerous and don’t require intricate movements. He adapts to memory of the movement rather than the feel of it. Feeling is out of the question.

After that he switches the ball for his piano and knives. Finger movement is the key, but it’s much harder than general movements that involve the larger parts of his arm like his elbow and wrist. He fumbles many times, as made evident by the little markings criss-crossing on the metal digits.

Oddly enough—or rather, not so oddly enough—he fumbles much more often when Droog is around. He’ll be at his piano or throwing knives at that one specific picture, or even just sitting around spinning one about, when the man knocks—or walks in, depending on where Slick is holed up in the hideout. And he, not subtley, will screw up in some embarrassing way.

And Droog’s fucking poker face does not help. Not a damn bit.

It’s like he’s moved on, but Slick can’t tell if he has or hasn’t because the man is known for that deadpan expression of his. Meanwhile, every time Slick’s training his arm and Droog walks in, his mind drifts to the thought that he was the one to give him the arm in the first place, which inevitably leads to the moment that he installed it, which inevitably leads to that very heated make out session they’d briefly shared, which inevitably leads to Slick wondering where it may have gone if the other two hadn’t shown up, which inevitably leads to…

… fumbling.

It’s not like it meant anything. Droog isn’t a saint. He’s broken many men with that well-concealed temper of his. He needs release too. But maybe it’s not always in the same way that Slick needs it. Maybe it’s more… _intimate_ than that.

That fact doesn’t keep it from driving Slick up the wall. He’s thought of the possibility of something like this for quite a while, even thought of taking it. He takes what he wants. He made this town, after all. But for the sake of partnership, he never persued the thought passed just that— a thought. They don’t need that kind of tension between them. This is a business relationship.

But now the idea is full-fucking-frontal and it won’t close its trenchcoat. The idea of being controlled rather than being in control, pinned to the table. The idea of Droog leaning over him, fingers gliding across his bare back. The idea of ripping clothes away, legs spread apart, right then and there…

Needless to say, there’s a very specific name that comes tumbling out of his mouth in the quiet of most nights.

—————

“Good job, boss.”

It’s been a month. They just finished a heist, which, consequently, was also Slick’s first heist since getting his metal arm. This time they had to eliminate a group of brutes and scammers, who’d had a vendetta against the Crew for driving them out of one of their casinos some time ago. Not anymore.

They never tried to keep Slick in the hideout. In fact, he could have gone wherever and whenever he wanted. Despite the lack of an eye and throbbing of his shoulder, the Crew wasn’t going to get in their leader’s way anymore, as long as he believed he could handle himself. But he never took the opportunity.

Droog speculated that it was because he was training that arm of his, enough that as long as it was hidden no one would have a clue that it’s fake. Now, as they walk back to their vehicle parked just down the alley, Droog thinks he’s right. A pair of gloves over Slick’s hands conceals the missing limb very well, and if he didn’t know about it he probably would have chalked up his boss’s few slip-ups today to a sprain or a bad day.

But Slick is not smiling about their victory.

He grunts at Boxcars’s praise. “Don’t butter me up.” He has his right gloved hand raised, looking at it as he flexes the metal fingers slowly, one by one. Glaring. Angry.

Droog knows why. When they were trying to regroup earlier, he’d found Slick finishing off the last of the brutes. He had him pinned, his right hand around the man’s neck, the other wailing on his face. But the guy was already dead and he didn’t even know it. The metal arm snapped his neck, but because Slick couldn’t feel it, he kept going. Droog had to pull him out of the moment, shaking a little. The robot arm on its own is strong—at least twice as strong as a regular arm. But if Slick can’t tell how much damage he’s capable of? Can’t stop because he can’t feel the snap of a spine under his fingertips? That’s worrying.

Slick isn’t interested by this, though. He’s more focused on the fact that he couldn’t _feel_ the kill. And without the feeling of the kill, it’s not a kill to him at all.

“‘Ey, lighten up.” Boxcars gives Slick a gentle slap on the back.

“Yeah,” Deuce pipes in, “Why don’t we do something to celebrate?” He sucks in a small breath, feeling a scolding from Droog coming on about laying low. But when nothing happens, he continues. “Uh… is that okay? Can we do that?”

Droog thinks for a moment. A month. Is that enough? According to most, the Midnight Crew has all but fallen off the face of the world. It’s really only paranoia keeping gangs in line; from raiding and taking over their establishments. They’re called the Midnight Crew for a reason.

Will one moment of sticking their head out ruin it? After a month? Is there still something to look out for?

“… I suppose we can,” he sighs, hesitance in his words. But Deuce cheers and Boxcars joins him. Slick’s mouth even twitches up a little. They’re all at least a bit stir-crazy. The thought of getting out of the hideout and this routine is very welcoming, and moments later they’re discussing where they should go, the thought of laying low long gone.

As their heist car scuttles off, a flickering light makes itself known in the alley across the street. A slender woman watches the vehicle drive away, the soft cackling of a small green figure echoing ominously just behind her.

—————

The Black Maria, located just two streets down from the Crew’s hideout, is one of their sleezier establishments. Not that they had planned that. The ambiance is a mish-mash of classy and crude—dim lighting, couples in fashionable clothing mingling with roudy crowds, an open bar displaying fine wines and cheap beer. To most it might seem chaotic, but somehow it all manages to balance itself out, making the Black Maria one of the most popular places to be during the late hours in Midnight City.

It’s incredibly crowded when they get inside, which is to their advantage. They slip in unnoticed and go their own ways, directing themselves where they please. Many recognize them as a group rather than individuals. They blend in seamlessly.

An hour flies by, and the place has nearly packed itself to the brim rather than thinning out. Boxcars shouts with victory as he cleans up a game of poker. Deuce spaces out in a stupor nearby, spinning on a bar stool, now and then attracting the attention of a few concerned patrons. Droog’s not doing much more than watching over all of them.

His eyes dart about as he takes a drag of a cigarette. He’s sitting in a booth on his own, too paranoid to lean back and enjoy himself. He can’t help it. There’s a feeling in his gut that hasn’t gone away since they got here, and he can’t fight it off. So he continues with his duties—looking out for his crew members while they enjoy themselves.

However, he can’t help that his eyes drift more towards Slick than the other two, involuntarily. The man’s leaning back in a corner with a woman on each side, right hand in his pocket as he smirks and nods along. Trying to be suave with the ladies isn’t his regular routine—he’s more than likely to be playing that game of Poker with Boxcars—but he looks like he’s having a good time, so Droog can’t complain.

He also can’t hold back the pangs of jealousy.

It’s childish, really. He’s pretty sure Slick’s already forgotten about it, and yet it still plagues the back of his mind. He’s always cared about the man a little more than he should. But this? This is different. If it’s just sexual tension, Droog can have almost any woman here—in fact quite a few have approached him. But he waved them off without a second glance. He sort of hates himself for it. For the jealousy. For that little bout of fury running up his spine every time one of the women lays a delicate hand on Slick’s arm or giggles at something he mumbles. For that feeling of possessiveness just because they shared a moment in order to release tension. Hell, Slick ripped his mouth up a few days ago.

… But it was different.

It didn’t end like it always had. He didn’t slow. Didn’t nod and wait for Droog to brush the blood off his mouth. He just stopped, suddenly, and then darted away to clean himself up. It felt unfinished, and left the taller feeling a bit baffled and even disappointed. Why the sudden change?

Droog pushes the thoughts away, squinting as the woman on Slick’s right searches through the purse slung on her shoulder. She’s muttering something about how it’s getting late and how she really must be going.

That’s when Droog spots the glint of a pistol handle peaking out of her purse’s pocket.

Slick leans a little forward and mutters something, to which the woman nods with a sheepish smile. He gives the second woman a wink before following as the first begins to leave. They walk right passed Droog’s booth.

Without so much as a twitch of emotion, Droog puts out a hand so his fingers brush against Slick’s left forearm. “Sir.”

The man turns, grimace already plastered. “What the hell do you want?”

“May I speak to you for a moment?” Droog turns to look at him, calm, unphased. Slick eyes him, trying to figure him out, but to no avail. The woman stands just behind him, looking a little distraught.

“Well I’m here, so talk.”

“In private.”

The shorter man glares, but there’s a part of his look that seems almost intrigued. He glances back at the woman, then returns his gaze to Droog. “Fine. But make it quick.”

Droog nods and stands, putting out his smoke in the ash tray. “Of course. Excuse us, this won’t take more than a minute.” He tips his hat a little before placing a hand on Slick’s shoulder to guide him across the room. Before he looks away from her, though, he moves his hand down to the small of his back—a little lower than a friendly gesture—and if Slick notices, he doesn’t show any sign of caring. The woman gawks for a moment before turning her attention to something else, having received the intended fake message—that this will very likely not just take one minute.

Slick stops abruptly and swivels around. “Okay, what?”

Droog gives one more glance to the woman, who’s taken a seat at the booth where he’d just been sitting. “Did anything about her feel… strange to you?”

Slick’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… did her intentions seem unpure?”

Slick stares.

“Of course they weren’t fucking pure, we were just about to hit the sack.”

Droog rolls his eyes and grumbles, rubbing at his temple. “That’s not—”

“Do you have a problem with it?”

“… Pardon?”

“Do you have a _problem_ with me hooking up?”

“No, I—”

“Because maybe you should try moving the fuck on like I’m doing.”

Moving on— oh. _Oh._

So he _does_ feel that way.

“Slick.” It’s very hard hiding the smirk that Droog’s mouth insists on displaying.

“What?”

“Look at the woman’s purse. Closely.”

He does, eyes squinted as she rumages through her purse again. Droog doesn’t even have to look over at her to know when Slick sees the gun. His expression says it all.

“… Oh.”

While it isn’t uncommon for citizens to have a firearm with them, the way she’s acting is suspicious. Her sideways glances at them are tinged with the slightest amount of frustration and objective. With his trained eye, Droog could very easily tell that she’s not just some lady looking for a roll in the hay, and she knows exactly who Slick is.

Droog’s posture relaxes a little as he shifts forward and tilts his head. “So what was that about… moving on.”

Slick’s eyes snap back to him. “Nothing. Shut up.” But he can tell that it’s very far from nothing, thanks to the involuntary twitch of his metal arm.

“You can tell me,” he encourages. Despite his calm demeanor, there’s a part of him that’s yelling at him to stop because there shouldn’t be anything between them.

“I said it’s _nothing_.” With his last word, Slick takes his right hand out of his pocket and shoves Droog back. It’s a little harder than intended. He almost ends up falling to the ground and bringing a few people along with him. The display catches a few patrons’ attentions. They’re staring right at Slick, who’s as equally as shocked as them. He recovers after a moment, rubbing his forehead and turning away. “I need some air.”

Droog watches him leave out a back door, ignoring the few whispers of speculation around him.

He’s not sure what he should do. His mind is reeling as he recalls the past month—all of Slick’s fumbling, distancing himself, keeping their conversations to a minimum. All of it because he wanted to avoid… this.

He needs a drink.

Except he’s not exactly sure he should have one. Maybe he should apologize for prodding about it. But the thought of following Slick outside into that alley only leads to interesting scenarios in his mind. So maybe he should just stay here and wait… but what if that is what he wants? Or what if he really just wanted to get some air?

Droog takes a seat at the bar, struggling to keep a straight face after realizing the things he’d just said, and the things he’s imagining could happen in that dark alley. This is very unprofessional of him.

After a few minutes he decides to confront the man. It’s no use sitting there while he stews in the tension. Leaving this as is will only make things worse. So he stands and waltzes out the back door to find him.

The second he does, all memory of the situation leaves his mind.

Slick is pinned to the ground, the right arm of his suit completely ripped away, his hat along with bolts from the metal limb scattered across the pavement, rendering it useless. A knife lays some ways away by the far wall. Hands clasp around his throat, his head thrown back. His eyes look as though they’re focusing on Droog, but they’re just blank, unseeing. He recognizes the figure straddling him immediatly.

Snowman.

Droog already has a pistol out and aimed at her head as he moves forward. “Get off of him.”

Her head tilts up, hands unmoving. A wicked smile creeps along her features. “Or what? You’ll shoot?”

His finger moves to the trigger. “Don’t test me.”

She just chuckles. “Fine. Shoot.”

He hesitates, hovering over the trigger, watching as Slick’s good arm claws at the asphalt, reaching for air. If he didn’t recognize Droog before, he does now. His eyes are slightly narrowed. Words of desperation are lost in his choked windpipe.

He can’t do it. This isn’t his kill. This isn’t his universe to end.

Snowman’s grin widens. “Of course.” And slowly her form seems to dematerialize, right before him.

When her hands have completely vanished, Slick takes in a long, urgent breath. Droog rushes to his side as he coughs and rubs his throat. “Are you alright?”

“Does it look like I’m alright?” Slick gestures to his right arm, limp and useless at his side. “You’re late.”

“Not too late,” he points out. He begins picking up the pieces and stuffing them in his pockets, still wary in case she shows up again.

The door swings open as Boxcars joins them, having seen Droog exit the establishment. “… Boss? What the hell happened?”

Slick is quiet.

“Snowman,” Droog says for him. The brute’s face becomes contorted with shock and fury. “Fun’s over,” he continues, “I’ll bring Slick back to the hideout to fix his arm. You and Deuce scout the area. She couldn’t have gone far.”

“… Boss?”

“Just do what he says,” Slick grumbles. His words are clipped. Frustrated.

Boxcars nods and returns inside to fetch Deuce while Droog helps the Crew’s leader to his feet, picking up his hat as well.

They don’t share so much as a glance as they walk out of the alley and reach the Crew’s car. Slick gets into the passenger side while Droog starts it up. They drive the very short distance to the hideout in complete silence, Slick’s head resting against the window as the streetlights cast shadows across his blank face.

He does mutter one thing, though. It’s so quiet Droog almost doesn’t hear it.

“I fucking missed.”

—————

The moment they get inside, Slick storms off to his room, slamming the door behind him. Even as Droog gathers the few tools he needs he can hear the loud bangs and crashes as the man defiles his room. He’s angry. Angry enough to revert to the old ways of coping with it. Hopefully he doesn’t break the piano this time.

“I’m coming in,” Droog says, already opening the door. The light is on. His desk is turned over, the things once placed on its surface now spilled out all over the floor. One of the legs of the chair is broken off, rendering it useless. The picture of Snowman is ripped and crumpled in the corner. Slick sits slumped on the piano bench. The piano itself is intact.

Droog hesitates in the doorway.

“What are you waiting for? Fix it.”

There isn’t much rage in his voice left. Whatever frustration he had is now emptied out onto the floor with everything else. Droog sighs and steps closer, rummaging through the metal pieces in his pocket. “Can you sit higher for me?”

Slick nods, not saying a word as he reaches back to cover the keys with the piano lid, hopping up and resting his feet on the bench.

Droog gets to work. The missing right arm of Slick’s suit is convenient, at least. Slick’s eyes are averted as he inspects the arm and begins working the pieces back into place. The tension in the room weighs down on the taller’s shoulders.

“You shouldn’t beat yourself up over it,” he mutters. His leader’s eyes dart over to him briefly.

“Over what?”

“Over Snowman. You’ll get another—”

“I’m over it, Droog. Just. Shut up.”

He’s taken aback by his retort, and when he tries to meet his gaze, Slick looks away. If that’s not it then—

Oh. That would be it. Why wouldn’t it be? It happened only minutes before Snowman showed up, and they haven’t exactly talked things out. Slick is still frustrated about outing himself.

Droog says nothing. But now he realizes what the tension is, and before long the air itself feels incredibly awkward when he breathes it in.

They really need to talk this over.

He ignores it for the time being, for the sake of putting every piece into its proper place. Snowman knew what she was doing. Droog knows just as well, though, so it’s not very long before movement is completely restored.

Something’s off.

“Wait,” Droog says as Slick makes a move to hop off of the piano. He complies grudgingly.

There’s still a metal piece in his pocket. Droog fishes it out, wondering if maybe he’d forgotten one. But that’s not possible. Slick’s arm is fine. He inspects it for a moment. It’s definitely not a piece he’s seen before.

There are, however, a few places it may fit.

He’d always sort of wondered about them—odd little spaces in the forearm that looked incomplete. However he was told, in detail, how every piece works. The way in which it had been explained to him hid this fact so well that he never questioned that maybe, just maybe, something could fit. He’d just assumed these spaces were a part of the design; never possible spots for something that was missing.

But now he’s holding a piece he’s never seen, and could only conceivably have been dropped by Snowman herself. His brain tells him that he should forget about the piece, but then again he got the rest of the arm off of the enemy anyway. Curiosity wins over logic.

Droog turns the arm around, removing a plate just below the wrist.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Slick’s words are harsh and impatient. It’s obvious that he’s anxious to get out of here—avoidance rather than confrontation. But Droog needs to see if this works. He needs to try.

He holds the removed plate between two fingers while he moves aside other bits such as wiring. If he’s right about the shape of the hole, this should be the place where it fits. He shouldn’t even have to use anything besides his fingers. He reaches in, Slick’s intrigue just slightly bested by his frustration.

_Click._

Eyes go blank. Fingers go rigid. Nerve circuits connect.

For a second Droog thinks he broke him.

“… Slick?” He slowly slides the plate back into place and moves his hands away. But there’s recognition of it. Of the feel of his hands leaving Slick’s. The cold metal fingers clasp around Droog’s palm. And they hold themselves there, without effort or guidance. It’s the first things he feels. _Feels_. “Is it working?”

He nods slightly, pulling his hand away and flexing his fingers, bending and twisting his elbow. He’s completely fascinated by it. Understandable. Not having feeling in an arm for over a month and then suddenly having it returned is jarring.

He’s about to ask how Droog fixed it, but decides against it.

“… Thanks. I guess.” Slick’s hand absent-mindedly wanders around every surface—along his own skin, then the piano, then back to Droog’s hand, playing with the end of his sleeve and feeling the material between his fingertips. Droog does his best not to flinch.

“Mm. So I suppose you can… move on from all of this now.” He’s not sure why he words it that way. He’s very aware of the reference to earlier. Maybe it’s because he wants to clear this up, right here and now. Maybe he wants to see what he’ll do.

Slick’s hand freezes, then slips away from Droog’s sleeve to rest on the piano lid. He does nothing. His expression is hidden beneath the rim of his hat.

It’s not like either of them aren’t aware of it by now. They both know. But for the sake of their status as business partners, they’re remaining at the edge, not stepping forward or back.

Droog tests the waters.

He leans down and pushes Slick’s chin up with a finger. There is no response, but neither is there protest, so he continues, and it’s not long before he’s placing a chaste kiss on the man’s mouth.

He draws it out a little, staying still. It’s an awkward, prolonged peck as he waits for Slick to make the next move. But he doesn’t. There is no movement. There’s a flutter in Droog’s stomach as his mind reminds him of their kiss ages ago, encouraging him to push forward even more. Instead he pulls back, not trying to force it on him. He took the first step, and if Slick doesn’t want to take the next one, that’s answer enough for him.

But it’s as he’s pulling away that he seems to change his mind. His mouth follows Droog’s, exhaling the words “fuck it” as he pulls him back in with his cold fingers on his neck.

If Droog was just testing the waters, Slick’s diving right in. The strength of Slick’s pull forces him to place his palms on either side of him, his tongue already darting out and forcing his mouth open. Confident fingers reach for the top button of Droog’s suit, eager to start exactly where they left off.

That’s really all it takes.

If there was ever any doubt in Slick’s mind that Droog didn’t want this as bad as he did, it’s gone the moment he’s kissing him hard enough that his back is flush against the piano. As Slick undoes each button, Droog’s left hand slides over to his hip, fingertips brushing along his thigh, passed his knee, down his calf and to the back of his foot, slipping his shoe off in a way that defies all argument that says slipping a shoe off shouldn’t be arousing. The other he removes on his own by scraping the heel against the bench. Both clatter to the floor.

At this point Droog’s blazer is open, the buttons undone. The hand previously on his foot slaps Slick’s away as he fumbles with his tie. He’s never been too savvy with ties. Slick busies himself with unbuttoning his own suit while Droog removes the tie, throwing it to the ground along with their hats.

“Fuck, come on,” Slick cusses as he catches his breath, struggling with the buttons of Droog’s collared shirt, impatience taking over. Giving up rather quickly, he resorts to just ripping the damn thing open. Buttons fly. If this was any other situation Droog probably would have screamed in horror. Right now he couldn’t give less of a shit.

Droog’s mouth makes its way along Slick’s jawline, nipping at it as he shrugs the garments off his shoulders, the other’s hands roaming across his back and chest. He shivers involuntarily at the feel of cold metal drifting down his abdomen. Lower. Lower.

This isn’t going to be stopping anytime soon.

He barely gets to tease his belt buckle before Droog’s lifting him right off the piano by his hips. Slick lets out a sound of surprise as they stumble back, his knees locking around the other’s waist, arms circling his neck. He starts swearing about how this definitely has no connotations about his height. Droog shuts him up by catching his lips again. He takes the few steps he needs over to the door, pushing it shut with a backwards kick before bringing them both over to the bed. They fall somewhat gracelessly onto the sheets.

The bedsheets are ripped in some places—fist-sized holes that reveal the mattress beneath. Droog can only guess what they’re from. The image of Slick gripping the sheets, tight enough that they tear—what an image it is.

“You’ve been busy,” he mutters. His voice sounds husky and wet even in a whisper.

Instead of replying, Slick bites Droog’s lip and groans. His hand drifts down again—his left one this time—passing his belt in favour of cupping between his legs. There is no stopping the breathless cuss that spills out of Droog’s mouth as a result. Christ he’s already half-hard.

“Need a hand, Droogy?” the shorter mocks. Droog squints his eyes and swats his arm away, ducking down after a moment to bite and suck under his chin. He leans on his elbow while his other hand gets busy unbuttoning Slick’s shirt the rest of the way. When he’s done he moves straight to the man’s belt.

Slick sucks in a breath as he feels the pull of the buckle being undone, followed by a snap and unzip. There’s a moment of _oh shit this is actually happening_ shared between the two, but it’s brief, only identifiable by Slick’s swift bracing grab of Droog’s shoulder and the pause before the taller’s fingers reach into his pants.

Oh, he’s hard. Harder than Droog thought he would be. He pulls his head back to get a good look at Slick’s face. His jaw is clenched, eyes nearly shut, waiting. Droog, experimentally, runs his thumb from the base to the tip of his length.

The reaction he gets is perfect. Slicks hips—or rather, his whole body—rolls with the movement, up against Droog, head tilting back as he lets out the air trapped in his lungs in a breathy little moan. When Droog does nothing to follow through, he catches his gaze again. His tongue flits between his teeth, eyes distant yet focused in a way that can only be described as _hungry_.

Droog’s mouth is suddenly very, very dry.

”Did you want something, sir?” he teases. The struggle to keep his voice steady is obvious. Slick mumbles a phrase that he can’t quite hear, urging him with another buck of his hips. Droog complies with one painfully slow stroke. “What was that?”

“I said fuck me you deaf son of a bitch.” His words are strained with a mix of anger and need. If Slick was hungry before, now he’s fucking starving.

Droog doesn’t waste any time. He pulls back, adjusting himself as such that allows both of them to shed whatever clothes is in the way. Which is to say, their pants. Slick doesn’t even bother with the unbuttoned shirt. They’re in way too much of a hurry for that.

The next time their mouths meet they’re pretty much tongue-fucking, Droog’s pants still half-on, at his knees, but it doesn’t matter because that’s all he needs. He’s leaning on his elbow again, Slick’s good arm hooked under his with his hand clawing his shoulder blade, the other cupping the back of his head. Droog positions himself so that his cock is flush against Slick’s, his fingers slithering down to grab both of them—

“No,” Slick hisses, his nails digging into Droog’s skin as he shifts away from his grasp, “I said _fuck_ me holy _shit_ is that so fucking hard to understand.”

Right to the point, then. And this isn’t a plea, it’s an order. Despite being the one in control here, he has no choice but to comply. Not that he’d protest.

Droog slicks two of his fingers up with his own saliva, quickly reaching down, passed his shaft to prod his entrance. There’s little discomfort as he slides the first finger in; he’s pretty sure Slick spreads his legs a little wider in a welcoming gesture. A mumble that sounds very similar to “more” tumbles out of the shorter’s mouth. Droog does as he’s told, slipping the second one in. The grip on his back tightens enough to draw blood, but the sound that accompanies the motion is far from one of pain.

He scissors his fingers inside him at a steady rhythm. Slick’s breathing synchronizes with each stretch, but it’s not long before he loses his patience. He makes it known with a bite to the taller’s lips, who doesn’t need more than that to understand what he wants. Droog pulls his fingers out and lines himself up properly. He extends his arm so that his weight is leaning on his palm rather than his elbow. There’s a tightness in his lower abdomen that adds to the tension they both feel permeating the air.

He doesn’t wait for the order this time.

The breath Slick was holding slowly escapes as Droog pushes in. He brings his knees up higher. At the halfway point his metal hand snaps to the sheets and grabs at them desperately. Droog feels Slick’s body steadily relaxing when he thinks he’s all the way in, but with that extra half-inch he tenses up again, finishing his exhale with a nearly unintelligible mutter of his name. “Diamonds.”

He starts up a slow pace immediatly. Now both of his hands are stretched out, fingers at the top edge of the bed so that his torso glides against Slick’s with each thrust. The friction is enough to drive him up the wall—fuck he’s so _tight_ —and every part of him is screaming to just screw him into the mattress, but he draws it out instead.

Slick is swearing under his breath, fingertips dragging across Droog’s back, moving his hips at a different rhythm to try and get him going but to no avail. Orders spew from his mouth, unanswered.

He gets desperate. His rhythm falls into place with Droog’s, hoping maybe that will encourage him to speed up. But it doesn’t. However now he’s not fighting it, his mind concentrating on the feel of his cock sliding in and out, the sound of skin against skin. Just the anticipation of something faster is enough to get him off. Slick’s orders become less harsh and more needy, until at one point the word “please” slips in between swearing and panting and then he’s _begging_ for it.

Despite Droog’s will to keep the pace slow, it’s not very long before the quickened snap of his hips becomes unconscious. Slick’s mouth is right at the side of his head and every little mewl feels like it’s in his brain, shooting down his spine, forcing him to thrust faster, and faster, and harder. He buries his face into the pillow and moans out his name as he gives into it. His left hand dives down to stroke Slick through it because he’s already so close and there’s no way of stopping. But Slick’s metal digits are already there, having moved only seconds before. Instead Droog’s palm cups the back of the other’s knee, pushing him up to the point that the small of his back is no longer on the mattress.

Whatever was left of their awareness of reality is gone in favour of losing themselves in the moment. If Deuce and Boxcars are back they don’t care, and they probably wouldn’t be able to hear them anyway over the creaking of the bed and smash of the headboard against the wall. Blood streaks across Droog’s back from the scratches, joined shortly by bites along his neck and shoulder as Slick tries to suppress the moans of complete abandon. Droog’s nails dig into Slick’s thigh while he babbles breathlessly into the sheets. It’s hot and needy and eratic, the sounds they’re making escalating with each other until eventually they meet at the top.

The combined feeling of his restored arm on his cock, blood beneath his hands and teeth and Droog hitting just the right spot inside of him is enough to send Slick careening over the edge first. His entire body locks up, tense and shivering and overwhelmed with pleasure as he comes between them. Droog follows seconds later, plunging deep inside his clenched muscles and releasing with a few more half-hearted thrusts. They collapse into an exhausted heap.

It takes them a minute or two to collect themselves. The white slowly fades from their vision. Breathing becomes steady. Thoughts click together. Briefly their minds drift back to the earlier happenings of this night, but then they’re gone, just like that. They’re too calm and satisfied to care.

Droog nuzzles the side of Slick’s head. “So, about moving on…”

Slick grunts, moving away from the affectionate touch. “Get off, I can’t fucking breathe.”

“Charming.” He does as he’s told, slipping out of him—Slick unsuccessfully trying to stifle a huff at that feeling—and shifting to lie beside him. Slick promptly turns so he’s on his left side, facing away. Droog reaches over and grabs the covers, lying in a heap likely since the morning, pulling it over both of their waists.

“… Are you staying?”

Little throbs of pain remind Droog of the scratches and bites, blood now staining the bed. “Until I have to clean this up,” he sighs, and his hand places itself on Slick’s side. Like that’s the natural thing to do. Like it’s supposed to be there.

“Well clean it up, then. It’s a fucking mess.” His words are cruel, yet he’s reaching back with his robotic arm and grabbing Droog’s fingers. Maybe it was to push them off at first, but instead he’s pulling him in, just a little. Just enough that he can run the cold metal against his skin, feel the contrast between the two. There’s still a fascination there, with feeling.

They talk harshly towards each other compared to the softness of the moment. Actions have always spoken louder than words.

“Not right now, Slick.” Droog watches their fingers, keeping his own slack so Slick can do what he pleases. He can literally snap them off with one wrong move, but somehow Droog’s not worried. A funny thing, trust.

The shorter says nothing, focused on their fingers like a child with a new toy. He squeezes them, traces them, even twines them together a couple times. It’s oddly tender, but that’s how he always seems to end these sorts of things with Droog. From rough snogging to rough sex, it’s like he’s apologizing. Like always.

“Jack.”

“… Hm?”

His voice is even quieter this time. “Just call me Jack.”

Droog hasn’t heard that name in years. He nearly forgot about it. ‘Slick’ has always been just a nickname to spite Snowman, since the name refers to frogs. It’s become so much who he is—the hate, the revenge. The anger.

But tonight, now, he’s not Slick. He’s tired. For one night he’s willing to let it go. For one night, he wants peace.

Droog takes his hand away from the cold metal and reaches for his left one, scooting a little closer. He closes his eyes.

“Okay. Jack.”

Tick. Tock.

—————

It’s early morning the next day, and Slick is already on the prowl. Deuce and Boxcars didn’t return from scouting, as far as he knows. Either they came back late and left early, or they were out all night. He wouldn’t worry about it, but considering the circumstances, he can’t just look it over.

He returns to the alley behind The Black Maria. There is no further signs of skirmish. His knife still lays untouched on the pavement. He picks it up and stuffs it in his pocket.

He scouts the area nearby looking for clues, but there’s nothing to hint at where they’ve gone. An hour, wasted. If there wasn’t a scuffle then maybe they really did just spend the rest of the night out on the town. But he can’t help fight a dark pit at the bottom of his stomach. If Snowman’s involved, it’s never this easy. Something is going to happen, and it’s going to happen soon.

The sun is beginning to rise, streelights turning off. It’s time to head back, before anyone sees his arm—he never did pick out a new suit. On the way, though, he hesitates at a storefront. It’s some cheap dollar store. A silly thought crosses his mind.

He breaks in and steals an eyepatch.

It was Droog’s idea. He couldn’t tell if he was being serious, since they were both half-asleep when he said it. He mumbled about how he should get an eyepatch, it would suit him. So now he has one.

It’s a joke. He’s not actually going to wear the fucking thing. Why would he do that? He’s not a pirate. He’ll put it on to humour the guy but that’s it.

He’s not willing to say it out loud, but he’s a lot calmer today than he’s been in a very long time. Yeah he’s gotten laid before. Plenty, in fact. But something was definitely different. A month of sexual tension aside, there was something different.

Maybe it was just… Droog.

Wow, that’s sappy. He grumbles as he takes off his hat to slip the eyepatch on, not acknowledging the little jump in his chest as he turns the corner towards the hideout.

But just like that the world is crashing down, mercilessly.

Smoke rises from the asphalt. From the manhole cover.

Slick’s not even aware that he’s running, it’s just happening. He’s going with instinct, falling to the pavement, shaking as he removes the cover, and then there’s smoke wafting up, overwhelming his senses but only momentarily. For a second he thinks he has tunnel vision, but he’s just staring down into the ground, down the shaft and into the gray. Light flickers against the rungs of the ladder.

Fire. _Fire._

“Droog!” his voice is half-angry, half-desperate. For some reason his legs are frozen in place, he can’t move. He won’t move until he hears something, anything.

There is no response.

He nearly stumbles all the way down the ladder. The smoke clears as he descends, all of it having drifted to the ceiling and out the hole. Once his foot touches floor, he swivels around, eyes darting around the gloom. This is definitely not a kitchen fire.

The table that once sat at the centre of the hideout is broken, half of the pieces feeding the flame in the far corner. At first he thinks maybe Droog finally fucking snapped and he’s tearing the place apart. But that can’t be it. It can’t be.

And, as he discovers a moment later, it’s not.

The rest of the table is wedged in his doorway, and underneath it is a shoe. A shoe attached to a a pair of pants. A pair of pants attached to a torso.

“Droog? Hey!” Slick calls out, darting over, grabbing him by the calf and sliding him out from under the ruined furniture. “Hey, come on, get up, get up. Stop— stop bleeding, what the fuck.” He’s not even aware of what that means. What the blood means. What the giant cut across his throat means.

He presses his palms against the cut, trying to scoop up the gore between trembling fingers and push it back in. _Droog blood doesn’t belong on the floor, are you fucking stupid?_ “Fuck, fuck, stop it. Snap out of it, you piece of shit.” There’s blood all over his skin, staining Droog’s suit as he grabs the cloth and pulls him up, shaking him, but his neck bends in a funny way and no, this isn’t fucking funny anymore. Why is it suddenly so hard to breathe?

“Droog, get up or I’ll fucking kill you.” Slick’s left hand goes up to cup the back of his head, forcing Droog to look at him. But there’s nothing. There’s nothing but Droog’s blank eyes staring somewhere between his shoulder and the end of eternity.

It clicks.

There’s a rage building in Slick’s gut that he doesn’t recognize as he’s holding what he now sees as a body. Not a person. Not Droog. There’s betrayal there but something more, and it’s overwhelming and he hates it and hates that he wasn’t here and hates this dead corpse that he wants to crush between his claws but he doesn’t.

He just holds it, like a child, grimacing, swearing. There’s something in his eyes as he realizes this is just like the vault, with Droog holding him, saying he’ll be okay, wiping the blood from his mouth. But now it’s the other way around and Slick’s too late.

He’s too fucking late.

His metal hand reaches up, thumb trying to copy the little motion Droog always did for him. He wipes at his mouth but all it does is spread the blood even more.

“You actually made me care about you, you son of a bitch.”

“How touching.”

It’s like razors on his spine. His entire being goes rigid. He turns, slow, full of rage, and when he meets the gaze of the green-suited brute, he spits his name.

“Matchsticks.”

The Felt sneers. “In the flesh.”

“But I—”

“You killed me, I know. In your past. That’s my future. You should really read up on your time travelling handbook, Slick.” He’s much more nonchalant than Slick remembers. He’s so busy glaring at the man that it takes him a second to notice that he’s cleaning a bloodied knife.

Slick places Droog’s body down, rising to his feet. The heat of the fire is nothing compared to the fury that envelopes him.

“You did this.”

“Mhmm. And I killed the other two as well. I’m very thorough.”

“Fuck you.” He’s already reaching into his deck of cards.

“You won’t want to be doing that. You know I don’t die here. And besides, I can tell you what you want to know, which is where Lord English is.”

Slick, despite himself, stops what he’s doing. “… What?”

Matchsticks ponders that. “Well, I can tell you where to find the man that will guide you to Lord English. Snowman will be there too, of course.”

And then he’s off, on a tangent, explaining every detail before Slick has any chance to react. When he finishes, the Crew leader is at a loss.

“… Why?”

“Why? Simple, Slick.” He catches his gaze again. “Snowman told me to.”

The world is blank as the pieces fall into place.

“Snowman’s the one who told me to travel back and tell Droog where to meet me. I told him how to create that arm of yours. Snowman’s the one that dropped that missing piece of your arm, which also happens to be a tracking device that led me straight to your hideout. Snowman’s the one that said to take everyone out except you.”

No.

“Face it, Slick. Snowman took your arm and then gave it back. It’s her property.”

No.

“She gave you the world, and then snatched it away, just like that.”

No.

“There is no escape for you. You are her naive puppet, and you can’t cut the strings because they’re made of diamond thread.”

Slick’s polite retort is a swing of the alternate-timeline crowbar, which he’d had hidden in his war chest. There’s an obvious surprise in Matchsticks’s expression. He retreats towards the fire.

“Goodbye, Slick. I’ll see you later. Or earlier. It all depends.”

He falls back, flames licking at his suit until he completely evaporates and melds with the smoke whisping out of the hideout.

Slick is left with nothing.

The crowbar nearly bends in his grasp. So there’s no longer anything in the world for him. Fine. He doesn’t have anything to lose.

Matchsticks will be first. He doesn’t care if it creates some time paradox. He’ll beat him to death with the crowbar, extra for his Crew. For Droog. Then onto Clover. Then Lord English. He’ll save Snowman for last.

And by last he means last. Last anything. Because it’s all going down. He’ll burn it.

He’ll burn it all to the ground.


	5. Epilogue

_“Smoking is bad for you, you know. Especially in your condition.”_

“You’re one to talk.”

Slick sits on his bed. Rather, this bed. He’s not entirely sure where he is. He can’t move thanks to the multiple wires attached to the robotic pieces that make up half of his being. A small Prospitian and some strange painted creature were in the room not too long ago, but now they’re gone. So he’s alone.

Well, not exactly.

”Besides,” Slick continues, taking another drag from the one cigarette the alien had reluctantly provided, “‘least one of my lungs is metal.”

_“You never smoked before though. Is it because of the health benefits? How silly.”_

“Oh shut up. You know the real reason.”

_“Mm.”_

They fall silent. The only sound in the room is the whirring of the machine keeping Slick alive. He inhales the smoke once more before looking over at the man sitting at the end of his bed, who has his back to him. His usually rigid shoulders are slumped.

“Droog.”

The man sighs and looks up at the ceiling, as if he’s looking right through it. Into the sky. _“What is it, Jack?”_

“What if none of this happened?”

_“… What do you mean?”_

“I mean,” Slick swallows, “what if we got outta the vault and everything was okay? My arm wasn’t missing, and we just went back to how things used to be… do you still think we’d…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.

The other doesn’t move.

_“We’d what?”_

Slick’s mouth sets into a thin line, his eye staring blankly into his back. “We’d be more than just… what we were. I don’t know.”

_“I can’t answer that.”_

“Why not?”

_“You know why.”_

He ignores the tight feeling in his chest. “Fuck, Diamonds, come on.”

_“Slick.”_

“Can you at least look at me?”

No reply. He just sits there. Looking up. Silent.

“… Please…?”

_“I’m sorry.”_

And slowly his form vanishes, leaving Slick there. Alone. All alone.

He hates this. The way these robotic pieces seem to bend his dreams and consciousness into one, as if he’s both asleep and awake at the same time, and it all seems so _real_. Yet it’s not. There is no changing the fact that despite getting his revenge—killing Matchsticks, killing Snowman, burning it all—he still feels empty. Because there’s nothing left. He’s done and there’s nothing to show for it. Nothing to look forward to in the end.

Nothing. No one. Not even Droog.

“You piece of shit,” Slick swears, throwing the cigarette where the apparition had been just a moment ago. “You piece of fucking shit, son of a bitch—” There’s a hiccup in his voice. He reaches up. Feels the red eye. Feels the eyepatch. But neither are damp.

He’s crying without the tears. But crying all the same.

He keeps his palm over the eye patch. His right one. The two objects left to both console and torture him.

His body rocks a little, like a pendulum. The last clock yet to stop its relentless march through time.

Alone.

Tick. Tock.


End file.
